Islam

The Telegraph has a good article about Syria’s Christians, who are trying to defend themselves against the depredations of ISIS. (What’s more, it’s the beginning of the month, so you can actually read it–the Telegraph has a bizarre business model that causes articles published early in the month to have 10 to 20 times as many readers–I’m guessing here–as articles published at the end of the month. But that’s a »

Avijit Roy, a native of Bangladesh, was an engineer by training, an atheist, the proprietor of a web site, and the author of a number of books. Recently, he has lived in the United States, but has been threatened with death by radical Muslims because of his religious and social views. His wife, Rafida Ahmed Bonna, was raised as a Muslim but supported Roy’s work as an atheist. Earlier today, »

Thanks to Doug Giles of ClashDaily, we have seen some of the early job applications for Marie Harf’s jobs-for-jihadis program run through the Obama State Department. Maybe, as one application helpfully suggests, they will call this “Be-Head Start.” At least for the youth brigades. No word yet on whether these jobs will pay higher than minimum wage, which I hears is 72 of some currency. Also no word yet how »

Andy McCarthy points out that, even as the White House throws “a public hissy fit” over the upcoming speech to Congress by Benjamin Netanyahu, it chooses to be “chummy” with Salam al-Marayati, the Muslim activist best known for saying, right after the 9/11 attacks, that we should put the State of Israel on the suspect list. You have to hand it Obama, he knows who his friends are. It’s America’s »

“Defender of the Faith” is one of the British sovereign’s titles. Of course, Britain has an official faith, the Church of England. The United States has no state religion, and if it did, it wouldn’t be Islam. Nevertheless, Barack Obama and his minions have set themselves up as official interpreters and defenders of the Muslim faith. This doesn’t stop with insisting that Islam has nothing–nothing!–to do with Islamic terrorism. Here »

The cover of today’s New York Post seems like news all by itself. It gives us a sort of emperor-has-no-clothes moment. Geoff Earle’s story on Obama’s keynote speech at the Countering Violent Extremism Summit yesterday afternoon is the subject. Jonathan Tobin comments on Obama’s speech in the Post column “Obama dances around reality as ISIS plays the tune.” I have linked the text and posted the video of Obama’s speech »

The Council of American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) is seeking to limit our government’s ability to obtain information with which to counter Islamist terrorism and jihad. On the eve of a three-day White House meeting on federal efforts to mitigate jihadi violence, CAIR issued a statement calling, in effect, for the government to farm out its program for dealing with domestic Islamist terrorists to Muslim leaders — in other words to CAIR »

That eye-catching possibility was raised by this Daily Beast article by Barbie Latza Nadeau: “Italy Fears ISIS Invasion From Libya.” Last weekend in Italy, as the threat of ISIS in Libya hit home with a new video addressed to “the nation signed with the blood of the cross” and the warning, “we are south of Rome,” Italian prime minister Matteo Renzi shuttered up the Italian embassy in Tripoli and raised »

There is a recurrent fantasy within the Obama administration that they could get away with anything, if only that damn Fox News would shut up. Well, sometimes that could be true. But other times, it’s delusional. Like when Eric Holder blamed Fox News for Islamic radicalism: Whenever you’re getting criticized by both sides, it probably means you’re probably getting it right. We spend more time, more time talking about what »

The question of the relationship to Islam of radical Islam in general and ISIS in particular has never struck me as perplexing. Radical Islam is the radical strand of Islam, and ISIS is an extreme version of the radical strand. Its actions are consistent with portions of the religion’s core text which are founded on the conduct and preaching of the religion’s founder. You don’t need to be a scholar »

Shortly after Danish police killed terrorist Abdel Hamid El-Hussein, flowers appeared at the site where he was shot. Hussein had killed two people and wounded others in two random shooting incidents. His first random target was a forum on free speech; his second was a synagogue. Not long after the flowers appeared, a dozen or so men appeared at the site. Declaring themselves Hussein’s “brothers” and randomly shouting Allahu akbar, »

That’s what CNN says: “Religion’s week from hell.” Whether you believe that religious violence is fueled by faith or is a symptom of larger factors — political instability, poverty, cultural chaos — one thing seems clear: Last week was hellish for religion. … The causes of violence are complex, and reducing them to talking points only adds to the problem, scholars say. But if you want to rally troops to »

Barack Obama speech to those assembled at the National Prayer Breakfast yesterday represents the nadir of his presidency. The White House has posted the text of the speech here. John and Paul have provided devastating assessments of Obama’s speech here and here, respectively. I can’t improve on them. I want only to add this note. We see events spinning out of control in the Middle East. We see our efforts »

Earlier today, Scott posted President Obama’s statement about the barbaric murder by ISIS of the Jordanian pilot. Obama took the occasion to warn Americans not to “get on our high horse and think [what ISIS did] is unique to some other place.” It’s not surprising, given his view of our country, that Obama would deny that Americans ever have standing to get on a high horse. But if we can’t »

Scott wrote this morning about President Obama’s speech at the National Prayer Breakfast. I think Obama deserves another whack, so here goes. Much of the speech was fine. But the key passage was where he acknowledged the reality of Islamic aggression and terrorism, and then commented on it: But we also see faith being twisted and distorted, used as a wedge — or, worse, sometimes used as a weapon. From »

It’s not exactly more mush from the wimp, because Obama is something worse than a wimp. He’s perfectly cold-blooded about the partnership he’s forging Iran’s finest murderers. See, e.g., Lee Smith’s important column “Nuclear dreams.” Yet Obama sounds like a pantywaist. He’s serving up mush. He droned on with the usual blatherskite that he read off the Teleprompter at the National Prayer Breakfast this morning (video below). You wonder how »

The day after the Charlie Hebdo shootings, Deepa Bhandaru showed some of the cartoons that prompted the attack to students at the Refugee Women’s Alliance in Seattle. Bhandaru showed the cartoons in the context of a discussion on religious pluralism and freedom of speech. The cartoons she showed to her students, most if not all of whom are Muslims, reportedly were not the more inflammatory, sexual images. Now, a group »